


How do I ask a boy out?

by traumschwinge



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Bad Pick-Up Lines, F/M, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Matchmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:19:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1499861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles asks Raven to help him woo his hot boss. So Raven does, with colorful cards and pick-up lines so bad even Charles might be ashamed of them. But thanks to her boyfriend, she knows those will work on Erik.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How do I ask a boy out?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kageillusionz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageillusionz/gifts).



> For kageillusionz, who also contributed Charles’ final message (thanks a lot again, darling). 
> 
> [Inspired by this post](http://kageillusionz.tumblr.com/post/83191526497/komlin-livingonmusicals-komlin).

“Raven,” Charles sighed. “How do I ask somebody out?”

Raven gave him a look. “Charles, are you…?” She shook her head. “I don’t even know where to begin with what is wrong with you asking a question like this. Are you sure you’re my brother and not some alien clone?”

“Raven!” He glared at her. “I’m definitely not an alien clone. What the hell?”

Raven chuckled. “You never know. Usually, you wouldn’t ask a question like that. My brother who can hit on anyone he wanted with the shittiest pick up line in history and still go home with them asks me for dating advice. That’s new. Didn’t you score enough dates lately?”

“Raven!” With a sigh, Charles buried his face in his hands.

“Okay, who’s this about?” Raven leaned over the breakfast table. “Tell me so I can give you better advice. Come on. Not everyone can be a mind reader. You have to tell me.”

Charles could feel the curiosity radiating from her. There was no desire to help him despite perhaps that he was her brother and therefore she owed him—a lot of mockery, he supposed. “You’ll only laugh at me if I tell you,” he sighed miserably.

“If I promise you that won’t, will you tell me?” She placed a hand on his arm. “I promise. This seems to be important to you. So I won’t laugh, no matter what it is. Is it the little old lady from next door?”

“Why would even you think that?!” Charles stared at his sister in shocked disbelief. “Mrs… no, you know what, no. I won’t even get there.” He sighed. “You promised you won’t laugh?”

“Girl scout’s promise,” Raven swore solemnly.

This time it was at Charles to give her a look. She’d never been a girl scout in her life. But that promise was better than nothing and knowing her all he would get. “It’sErikLehnsherr,” he mumbled as quickly as he could in the hope she wouldn’t be able to understand him that way.

But of course, she understood him perfectly well. “Az’ boss?” she laughed, shook her head, looked at him to find any sign that he was lying and when she couldn’t, she leaned back in her chair. “Charles, brother dear, are you sure that man’s even human? Az has known him for years and he swears, Charles, that man’s a robot and they sure as hell forgot the emotion chip when they build him.”

“He sure isn’t that bad,” Charles huffed. “And I checked. He’s quite human, I can assure you. Just… you know, not base-line human.”

Raven grinned. “And you want to ask him out.” She whistled. “Wow. From what I heard about him, he doesn’t feel accomplished until he had made an intern cry every week. Az is his friend and even he says that he wouldn’t cross Lehnsherr before he’s had his fifth coffee.”

“Raven, I can assure you all these stories are greatly exaggerated,” Charles sighed. “He’s a nice, gentle man and I’m sure he would make a great boyfriend.”

“Sure you do.” Raven sounded exasperated but somewhat fond. “Okay. Leave it to me and Az. We’ll help getting you a date with the robot. But just because you’re my favorite brother.”

Charles beamed at her. “I’m your only brother. But thank you, Raven. Just tell me what to do and I will.”

“You do nothing. Just wait. I have the perfect idea. All you have to do is thank me later.”

–

Erik stared at the card on his desk like it would explode the second he touched it. It was…pink and had flowers on it. Who in their right mind would send him a card like that? Especially one that read “Roses are red, violets are blue” on the outside. It was almost like of all the love poems in the world people only knew those two lines.

He picked up between two fingers, ready to throw it into the garbage where it belonged, when he noticed the following two lines that were inside the card. “Guess what, my bed has room for two,” the card announced, in big purple letters on a horrendous magenta background.

Erik almost grinned at that. In the list of all the bad pick up lines, this might just be in the top ten. Erik couldn’t say he didn’t like it.

“Wow,” Emma walked into his office, a stack of files in her hand. “What’s wrong with you? I could have sworn you just almost smiled. Did you kill someone? Do I have to help you hide a body?”

“Fuck you, Frost,” he replied, trying to hide the card before she could see it. Of course, he wasn’t fast enough and before long, she had snatched it out of his hand and read it.

“Someone seems to know your weakness for bad pick-up lines,” she laughed when she’d read it.

“I do not have a weakness for bad pick-up lines,” Erik snapped back, taking the card out of her hand and dumping it into the bin.

“Oh, sugar, you sure do,” she grinned. “Remember that one drunkard that wanted to pull down your genes? You’d gone home with him if Azazel hadn’t saved you. And don’t tell me you were drunk as well that night, because I know you weren’t.”

Erik crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Did you just come here to mock me?”

Emma shrugged. “Darling, I would never skip an opportunity like that. But I came to ask you if you’d already had your coffee today. You know, office security regulations and so on.”

“Very funny,” Erik grunted.

“Come on, let’s get some caffeine in you.” Emma turned to the door and walked out, leaving it to Erik to follow her. He did, but not without fishing the card out of the bin and storing it in his brief case first.

–

The next morning, there was no card waiting for him on his desk. Erik was almost disappointed.

–

Wednesday morning, a card appeared on his desk when he was gone to fetch his coffee. This time, the card was dark blue, sprinkled with stars and the words bright yellow against the dark blue announcing “Twinkle twinkle little star.”

Curious because he had yet to get the last card out of his head, he opened the card without any hesitation. “We can do it in the car,” was the cards invitation. This time, Erik smirked. He sat back down at this desk and started to turn the card over, searching for a name or anything really that could help him find the sender of those cards. He was starting to get curious. And that made him suspicious.

Which was why he stalled Azazel at the beginning of their lunch break. “I need to talk to you,” Erik grunted. He shoved the card in Azazel’s face.

“What’s that?” Azazel asked, sounding much too innocent to be believed for even one second. Reading the card, Azazel whistled impressed. “Looks like there’s some crazy person trying to get in your pants.”

Erik glared at him. “And you’re sure you don’t have anything to do with it?”

Azazel laughed. “Do I look like I would hit on your sorry ass with bad rhymes and sexual innuendo?” Azazel grinned “I’d ask you if you’d fuck me. But don’t worry. I won’t.”

Erik snorted, but he left it at that. He still had hope to find out who sent those cards later. He was almost sure this wouldn’t be the last card.

–

Thursday went by without a card.

–

Friday started as a bad day. No card and a metric fuckton of work that needed to be done by the end of the day. Erik barely found time to grab a coffee in regular intervals or worry about the lack of cards and bad pick-up lines. If Azazel hadn’t dragged him out to grab lunch, he would have skipped that completely.

Finding a card when he came back from lunch only fueled his suspicion that Azazel had something to do with them.

The first thing Erik noticed about the card was the horrible cartoon row boat on the front. But he almost skipped the text entirely when he saw that this card, for once, was actually signed. Granted, only with the initials, but how many CFX’s could there be who knew him. Grinning, he scanned the text. “Row row row your boat,” Erik was almost humming the melody as he read. “Gently it down the steam, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, I can make you scream.”

Without a moment of hesitation, he called his secretary and ordered her to bring him a list of all employees with the initials CFX, before he went back to work. The sooner he was finished with that, the sooner he would have time to search for that mysterious person with bad pick-up lines that apparently very much wanted a sexual relationship with him.

Of course, all his hopes of actually finishing anything that day went out the door as soon as his secretary told him that there was only one employee with the initials CFX working down in accounting, one Charles Francis Xavier. Xavier, Erik mused, he had heard that name before but he couldn’t remember when or where.

Erik finished at least the most urgent parts of the project before he started—he shuddered at the thought alone and actually doing it made his skin crawl—delegating the rest to his minions. If anyone had wanted this to be done well, he reasoned, they shouldn’t have given it to him on Friday to finish by the end of the week. When he was done with that, he went down to the accounting department, ignoring the look Emma shot him when he stalked past her in the hallway.

He didn’t notice the fault in his plan until he reached accounting. He had no idea what Xavier looked like, the file on him hadn’t held any photograph. He should just have looked up the man on facebook or something. But Erik wouldn’t be Erik if he hadn’t a simple solution to this problem. He went up to the nearest person and asked, “Who’s Xavier?”

The boy he had asked went pale. Erik knew his own reputation well enough to figure out that the boy was expecting the worst to happen to Xavier, but the boy still pointed at one desk, before hurrying off before Erik could thank him for the information.

The man sitting at the desk Erik had been pointed to was sitting with his back to Erik. The wavy brown hair looked vaguely familiar, as did the curve of his shoulders, but that could just mean Erik had met him in the halls or an elevator before. After all, they were working at the same company.

“Charles Xavier?” Erik asked when he’d reached the desk. The man turned around and—oh, Erik had seen this face before, how could he forget such lovely red lips and bright blue eyes. Just, it hadn’t been at the office. It had been at a bar, when Azazel had dragged him out to meet his new girlfriend Raven. Raven Xavier. Erik cursed under his breath, earning a worried look from those much too blue eyes.

“Am I in trouble?” Xavier asked.

Erik quickly shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of,” he assured him. “But.. er.. if you’d.. it would probably be for the best if you joined me in my office. I need to have a word with you.”

He turned around and strolled off. He could hear Xavier follow him but that wasn’t much consolation. The memories of their last meeting were slowly coming back to Erik and all he could concentrate on the way back was not to blush because Xavier had to remember that night was well—or maybe he didn’t he had been very drunk after all. But the cards could only mean that he did remember. Or maybe just Raven remembered and wanted to do—Erik shuddered—double dates.

Back at the office, Erik sat down behind his desk. He needed the space between them. He felt already very uncomfortable asking this question and the grin Azazel had shot him on his way back had only helped in making him more nervous.

It took Erik a lot to take the cards and push them across his desk. “Did you sent these?” he asked Xavier, hoping very much that the answer was yes, because if he hadn’t this would be very awkward and also a great misfortune. Erik wanted Xavier to be the one who’d send them.

Xavier looked at the cards, confused at first, but then his eyes widened in shock and—possibly—recognition just when Erik had been about to give up hope. “Oh god,” Xavier groaned, putting the cards back down. “I’m so, so terribly sorry.”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “So you did leave them on my desk?”

“I…” Xavier bit his lip, something Erik found very endearing. “…I know this sounds weird but my sister did this. For me. I’m so sorry, I should never have…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry if those have bothered you. It will stop. I promise.”

“Your sister did this? For you?” Erik repeated. He wondered if this really meant what he thought it meant. “Raven Xavier, right?” He needed to be sure about this. Xavier nodded, his eyes lighting up with something that could only be called hope. If Erik only knew how to phrase what he wanted to say. “I… you’re not in trouble for those cards. To be honest, I enjoyed them. And… I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner or coffee or something any time soon.”

Xavier’s face instantly lit up. “I’d love to!” Erik couldn’t help but answer with a smile of his own.

“Later tonight?”

“Sounds lovely. I’ll wait for you at my desk or should I come up when I’m done?”

Erik took out a business card from the stack on his desk and wrote his private cell phone number on it, before he passed it to Xavier. “Message me when you’re done for today and I’ll come down to get you.”

Xavier took the card. He was still smiling and Erik felt himself getting fonder and fonder of it. Seeing that smile every day could just be the best possible future. “I will,” Xavier promised. “See you then.” He got up from his chair and walked back to the door, before he turned around again and smiled, “And please, call me Charles.”

“Erik,” Erik called after him, grinning as well.

–

Charles couldn’t believe Raven had actually send love letters—okay, well, cards—to Lehnsherr—Erik, he corrected his thought. He had asked him to call him Erik, Charles still couldn’t believe his luck. The pick-up songs in the card, though. They sure were just his style, but he’d asked Raven to avoid that kind of thing, not to go over board with it.

Unbelievable as it was, it had worked out and Charles found it hard to get the grin off his face.

–

Around five, Charles decided he had waited long enough. He had thanked Raven. After he had complained to her about her means to this end, of course. With a widening smile, he typed a message he wouldn’t even have to sign for Erik to understand it was him.

“Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock

When the bough breaks, your trousers will fall

And down will come baby, my mouth and all”

He knew he had done the right thing when Erik appeared by his desk ten minutes later, still grinning with all his teeth.


End file.
